


shiver shiver

by girlsonthetv



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Cats With Too Many Teeth, Gen, Hidden Talents, Pep talks, magic headcanons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-11
Updated: 2020-03-11
Packaged: 2021-02-28 16:55:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23110543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/girlsonthetv/pseuds/girlsonthetv
Summary: Ignatz has never been drawn to practical things, but they never suited him to start with.Or, Ignatz learns the trials and tribulations of capital-R Reason.Or, Ignatz meets a very strange cat.
Kudos: 12





	shiver shiver

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sammy!!!](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=sammy%21%21%21).



Ever since he was a boy, Ignatz had been infatuated by beautiful things. Not just the treasures his parents brought home from their long business trips; rich fabrics the color of the ocean and the orchids that grew in the winter, gemstones that, when the light hit them just right, projected rainbows onto the wall. The sky after a rainstorm, the grass in the morning before the sun came up, Raphael’s younger sister Maya’s delighted smile when he gave her the picture he’d drawn; those all captured his fancy as much as anything expensive. 

He remembers that particular afternoon as clear as day; when he'd run home declaring that when he grew up he was going to be an artist and his father had slowly and painstakingly put aside his book to sigh in his general direction. That wasn't a good career path, he said, Ignatz wouldn't make any money drawing pictures. It was best he went to school to be a knight, instead, and bring his family prosperity. More prosperity, his father clarified, than he and his wife had been able to provide for their children. Ignatz, puzzled, thought they were perfectly prosperous already, but he was smart enough at that tender age to keep this thought to himself, and save painting and drawing for when his father wasn’t home to give him meaningful looks. 

Looking back, he thinks he might have been twelve when the lectures really began to roll in; stop drawing and start studying, stop staring out the window, you'll never get into Garreg Mach with that kind of attitude. He'd always been what his parents and teachers called a "smart boy," and so he learned quickly that drawing was a perfectly suitable hobby, but that was all it could ever be. 

He’d chosen bows as his weapon of choice. In theory, they kept him far from the front lines and the action, and he wouldn’t have to see the life being snuffed from the other person’s eyes. Besides, he had a remarkably good aim, at least with his glasses on, and he figured it was a good way for an otherwise plain boy to distinguish himself on a battlefield. He learned the most basic elements of swordplay, as well, just in case it was on the Garreg Mach entrance exam. After all, what was a knight without a sword?

What really attracted him was magic; the conjuring of fire and ice and lightning, the columns of light bursting from the sky in paintings of Saint Seiros locked in battle. Every time his mother would get up to light candles or start a fire in the hearth, he would scramble after her to watch wide-eyed as sparks burst from her fingers. Every time, it tickled his mother pink that Ignatz was so impressed by the simplest hand-magic that everyone could do.

For though Mrs. Victor was quite talented at it, she had never been formally trained. Magic was the purview of nobles, everyone knew that; masters of the art were rare and lessons cost a fortune, to say nothing of the cost of the necessary materials. There was also the fact that if one didn’t have a Crest, one was quite unlikely to become a master themselves. Mrs. Victor sighed and shook her head but nevertheless accepted her lot; and Ignatz Victor, being an obedient young man, followed her example. 

It was the sword and the bow for him, the sword and the bow until his fingers blistered and he couldn’t pick up a pencil even in the dwindling scraps of free time he had. No matter how he might long for other, grander things, it was best to be practical.

/

Ignatz was ensconced in the library at Garreg Mach like a baby owl in his mother’s nest when he began to hear a rhythmic thudding noise. He peeked out from his corner to see their new professor, still sweaty from their mock battle, tearing books from their shelves and tossing them into a pile with a rough hand that made Ignatz’s heart ache for their delicate covers. “Professor?” 

Her eyelid twitches. “Ignatz.” She doesn’t slow or cease. 

“...What are you doing?” 

“I am pulling books.” Ignatz winced at the particularly loud thud of a reference book hitting the floor. “Because I don’t know a damned thing about magic, pardon my language, and tomorrow I will have to lecture an apparent prodigy on the subject.”

Ignatz thought of the white-haired girl he’d encountered a few days earlier and the way her whole body seemed to crackle with magic during the mock battle, the very air bursting as she threw spells around. “Lysithea?”

“Yes.” The professor briefly paused in her assault on the monastery’s stores of knowledge to look over what she had pulled out. “These are all the biggest, most inscrutable tomes I could find; you think that’ll suffice?” 

Ignatz peered at the books; their titles written in foreign tongues, their covers edged with gold. His fingers twitched for a paintbrush, for a pencil. He squeezed his hands into fists. “I don’t know; it looks good to me. I don’t know much about magic.”

Byleth’s posture straightened up, and she gazed at the opposite wall with a focus fit to burn a hole in it. “Maybe,” she murmured, then turned to Ignatz again. That intense gaze, focused directly on him, had him shrinking back a bit. “How would you like to give it a try?”

“Give it a try?” Ignatz could scarcely believe it. “Why?” 

Byleth cocked an eyebrow. “Because I’m your professor, and I say so… ? But all jokes aside,” Byleth’s tone had not changed, and Ignatz was relieved by the clarification that she wasn’t serious, “I want to hone your strengths, but I also want to help you discover new talents. Might as well give it a shot before discarding it entirely.” 

“That’s… true.” _Father said the same thing about swords, and look how that ended,_ a nasty little voice murmured in the back of his head, reminding him of swordplay lessons that had ended in tears. This was different, though, this was magic; he wouldn’t be getting up close and personal with his enemies if he was flinging spells. 

“Great. So these books are for you, too.” Byleth hefted the enormous stack without batting an eye. “I might pick out some more, in that case… “

Next week arrived and found Ignatz as one of the first children in the Golden Deer classroom, tapping his foot anxiously and wondering what magic lessons would entail. What could possibly warrant the exorbitant prices needed to attend the School of Sorcery in Fhirdiad, or have a master come to one’s home for one-on-one tutoring? He half-expected velvet rugs to be pulled out, elaborate chalk designs, a dozen scenes from a dozen books coming to his mind and itching to be drawn. 

The door slammed open, jolting Ignatz from his daydreams and prompting all the other Golden Deer who had trickled in and were beginning to chat amongst themselves to stop talking and look towards the disturbance. Professor Eisner walked up to the podium at the front of the classroom, trailed by the sound of her heeled shoes clicking on the stone. 

“Never heard of a mercenary who wears heels.” Leonie murmured from the seat next to Ignatz, in a tone of voice something like awe and something like rage and something like desperate envy. 

The professor cleared her throat. “G’morning.” 

Claude, in the front row, leaned forward with a hand cupped around his mouth, and the professor lowered her head for him to whisper in her ear. Ignatz pretended to stare out the window behind them as he read the professor’s lips; _so I just talk to them, then approach individuals? I can do that. Yeah, thanks Claude. No, that’s fine._

The professor straightened back up. “I suppose I should start by telling you all some things I’ve learned as a mercenary.” 

Ignatz readied his quill and prepared to be educated.

/

His first magic lesson went about as well as could be expected, which is to say not very well at all. Professor Eisner, despite her best efforts, knew very little about magic beyond what she had managed to wring out of the secretive warlock in Jeralt’s company and the books she had found in the library. 

“I asked Arcade if I could borrow some of his journals he’s always scribbling equations in, and he said ‘absolutely not,’ then his cat started glaring at me.” Byleth rolled her eyes - the first flicker of emotion Ignatz had seen on her face since meeting her. “So we’ve got library books and one of Arcade’s books I practically yanked out of his hands.” 

In the end, Ignatz, Lysithea and Lorenz had mostly ended up teaching themselves, with Byleth keeping an eye out for any errant fireballs while she taught Claude and Leonie bow techniques. Ignatz’s carefully tended garden of complexes flourished, as Lorenz had been trained at Fhirdiad’s School of Sorcery and Lysithea was a prodigy who had already devoured most of the books Byleth had pulled for them. By contrast, Ignatz’s most successful attempt at conjuring ice shards had very nearly given him frostbite. 

Lorenz no doubt thought he was being very encouraging when he said that given a few years of study, Ignatz would no doubt be quite good. 

In between the first week of instruction and the next, Ignatz had gone to Hanneman’s seminar and asked a question for every other word out of the man’s mouth. He left with a sheaf of notes and feeling significantly better about his chances at becoming a serious mage.

This time, he didn’t come nearly as close to serious injury, but he did have to nurse a cup of tea for the latter half of the lesson to return feeling to his fingers. He watched Lorenz and Lysithea conjure fireballs with hardly a thought and bleakly considered how he would inform the professor that he would like to stick to swords and bows, thank you. 

The end of the lesson arrived and the Golden Deer filed out, discussing the coursework they’d been assigned and what they were going to eat for lunch, leaving Ignatz sitting criss-cross applesauce with his slowly-cooling cup of tea and a growing void in his chest whispering in his ear _you’ll never amount to anything._

“Hey.” A familiar heeled boot poking his knee. Ignatz looked up. 

“Professor, I - “

“I think I know what you’re going to say, and the answer is no.”

“But, Professor - “ Ignatz started before the professor held up a finger. Her imperious gaze reminded Ignatz of Hanneman, who had been teaching for thirty years, and tolerated no chit-chat in his seminars. 

“But nothing. Do you think those two came out of the womb good at magic?”

Ignatz opened his mouth to say _yes, they both bear the Crest of Gloucester,_ before it occurred to him that this likely wasn’t the correct answer. The professor was the first person he’d ever encountered who had to have the Crest system explained to her, and she treated Crests as a trivial detail rather than a crucial aspect of a student’s character. “No, professor.”

“Because they weren’t. They’ve been working at it for longer than you - so what? It just means you have to work harder. And I know you can work hard, Ignatz. I’ve seen it.”

This touched Ignatz more than he was willing to admit to an adult he’d met roughly a month ago. He’d been working hard all his life towards other people’s goals, and never measuring up - so to hear from someone that they’d seen his effort and appreciated it felt more wonderful than he could have imagined. A hopeful little voice whispered to him, _maybe you can do this._

“Are you listening?” The professor’s head was tilted quizzically, and Ignatz swallowed the lump in his throat and accepted her help getting up. 

He went to more seminars, and took more notes, and borrowed a tome from the library to practice with before trying to cast with his hands again. He began to train with Lorenz and Lysithea, who brought tea and constructive criticism, respectively, and the three of them made some lovely afternoons together after lessons in the Golden Deer classroom. It was grueling work, no doubt, and his progress was slow, but it wasn’t nearly as much of a grind as sword lessons had been. Magic was equally dangerous and difficult to learn, but he was beginning to find it much more fun. 

He initially didn’t take much notice of the black cat that he always saw out of the corner of his eye when he was practicing. Garreg Mach had a plague of cats, taken in and loved by the archbishop just like the multitude of orphan children brought up there. There was always a cat or two lounging in the grassy square outside the three house classrooms, soaking up the sunlight, and so one black cat among them was not a very strange occurrence. 

After a while, however, Ignatz’s eyes could not help but drift towards the creature. Its fur was so black it looked like a cat-shaped hole in the universe the goddess had cut with scissors, only two yellow eyes like stars ruining the image. The two regarded each other, one gray afternoon with storms boiling on the horizon, after a particularly successful training session. Ignatz offered his hand for sniffing, but the cat showed no interest; it instead yawned, showing off entirely too many teeth for a cat. Ignatz shoved his hand in his pocket and walked away, shuddering all the while. 

Ignatz woke up the next morning feeling inexplicably excited. It was the beginning of a new week, and he was going to master Blizzard today, he knew it in the depths of his heart. He dressed, washed his face and bolted down a light breakfast before being the first person to arrive at the Golden Deer’s classroom. He saw himself on paper, sketched in charcoal; _Boy At Desk._ He saw his bright eyes, straight posture. 

The other Golden Deer arrived, and he began to mentally sketch them in, as well; Claude with a quiver slung across his back, Lysithea with her library book clutched to her chest, Leonie draping herself across her chair with a masculine elegance. He would draw this scene once class ended. He had the feeling he would want to remember this day. 

Byleth tugged the practice tome down from the shelves. “There’s no need, Professor.” Ignatz said, pushing his glasses up. “That is to say, I’d like to try it without a tome today.” He heard the words as if they had left someone else’s mouth, someone bolder and smarter and less shy. 

Byleth’s eyebrows shot up, and she grinned. A few of her teeth were crooked. “Such confidence. Alright, go for it.” She pushed herself up onto her desk, feet kicking, and watched him slyly. Lorenz and Lysithea turned to watch, too, and all of a sudden it didn’t seem like such a good idea. 

Nevertheless, he took a deep breath and closed his eyes, bringing his hands together and thinking of every winter he’d ever experienced; wet snow that crunched beneath boots and horses’ hooves, air so cold it hurt to breath, fingers going numb while he attempted to paint this scenery in the earliest morning hours, then trying to keep painting. He felt the cold coalesce in his hand, felt it lick at his palm. 

Lorenz was hissing something under his breath, some piece of advice, perhaps, until Lysithea stepped on his foot. “He’s got this.”

With a rush of euphoria, Ignatz realized that he did, in fact, have this, and opened his eyes to a glimmering flower of ice blooming in his palm. He gasped and nearly dropped the spell before refocusing, tipping it into his other hand. He was already thinking about what pigment to use to capture the specific icy shade of his first real _spell_ before Byleth cleared her throat. All the joy melted off of his face as he prepared for a scolding, knowing that he’d made some obscure mistake somewhere. 

That couldn’t be the barest hint of a smile on his professor’s face. “Well done, Ignatz. Did I not say you should give it a try?” 

“You did.” Ignatz couldn’t wipe the grin off of his face if he’d wanted to. “I’m so glad I did, Professor. Thank you.” 

“Don’t mention it.” Byleth turned around to make some notes in the enormous binder on their desk. “How about a few sword drills before you leave?” 

Ignatz agreed, and ran through his basic maneuvers without complaint. Byleth could have asked him to run five laps around the monastery, and he would have done it and said thank you for the privilege. Without them, he never would have been able to nurture his talents. He owed them so much. 

The day ended and he left the classroom trying his best not to jump for joy when he spotted a cat. A black cat, specifically - one he knew he had seen before. He stopped dead in his tracks before bending down, offering his hand to sniff. The cat took a few steps forward and rubbed its face against his hand in that ancient gesture of feline affection. Ignatz noticed a tag hanging around the cat’s neck he hadn’t seen during their last encounter; made of dark wood, with the name “Kafka” painted on it in elegant gold script. 

Ignatz gave Kafka a last scratch behind the ear before heading to the dining hall for supper. Kafka blinked slowly at Ignatz’s back before turning around and winding himself between the legs of an almost aggressively average-looking man, clad in a mage’s robes despite the unexpected warm weather. “Is that Byleth’s boy?” The man asked the cat softly.   
The cat meowed and flicked his tail. 

A slow smile. “Yes, he does seem like something special.”

**Author's Note:**

> this was written to pander specifically to my dear dear friend who helped me when i was struggling. kafka and his mysterious owner are theirs.


End file.
